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50×30 Waterloo Region: Engaging locally on climate action

A drawn poster from 50x30wr.ca with a utopian town setting. People of all races walking, on bikes, using wheelchairs, riding the LRT, gardening. There is a tipi with an Indigenous pride flag, a pond, a city scape with a windmill, a hospital, buildings with solar panels, and in the background rolling hillside with farms and windmills.
50x30 Waterloo Region is campaigning for serious action to tackle climate change in Waterloo Region. Photo courtesy of 50x30 Waterloo Region's website.
Dan Kellar - CKMS - Kitchener • ON | 16-02-2021
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Host: Shalaka Jadhav

Climate action is often reported and engaged with at the national and international scale, but often, the local organizing efforts are lesser known.  50x30 Waterloo Region is a grassroots, community-led campaign advocating for the need for Waterloo Region to commit to a 50 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, in line with the imperatives of climate science and centering social justice and well-being.

For this segment, CKMS will be in conversation with four community members:

  • Kai Reimer-Watts, a climate justice organizer;
  • Stephanie Goertz, a volunteer with the 50x30WR campaign;
  • Megan Ruttan, a climate justice organizer, and Fridays for Future Waterloo Region organizer, and 
  • Andres Fuentes, who has engaged on climate work locally and globally for over 10 years.

In part one, we’ll hear about their motivations, the need for local climate action, and their work on a petition leading up to a motion to be presented at Regional Council.

In part two, we’ll talk about the history of organizing in the Region that the campaign is building on, the importance of building solidarity, and what a just climate future could look like, in the Region.

To learn more about 50x30, check out their website, including their petition to Regional Council.

Upcoming events include 50x30 Faith, to engage local faith communities on climate justice on Monday, Feb. 22, at 7 p.m. EST.  

If you’re interested engaging with the campaign, create your own 2-minute 50x30 video, take the 50x30 pledge as an organization, business and local group, or browse through the Climate Champion Communications Toolkit to build your own local climate action journey.

If you’d like to learn more about other cities working towards 50x30, consider the work of C40 Cities, including Vancouver, and Halifax.

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This program is a part of the “Local Journalism Initiative” grant program and is funded by the Community Radio Fund of Canada, the Government of Canada, and the CKMS Newsroom.

Check out the archived versions of  this program and other episodes on radiowaterloo.ca/news., and other stories commissioned under the Local Journalism Initiative at canada-info.ca.

You can  follow us on twitter @RadioWaterloo. If you want to get in touch with comments, or ideas about stories to cover, email us at news@radiowaterloo.ca.

Music for this episode was courtesy of Dylan Prowse.

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